150 THE RISE OF MEDICAL SOCIETIES CHAP. 



great library, which should become a centre of medical light 

 in the world. 1 Probably financial support was lacking to 

 its prosecution. By the year 1783 the two favoured English 

 universities had come to supply an ever smaller proportion of 

 the physicians of London. The fellows were now reduced to 

 forty, and with only two exceptions they held English degrees ; 

 the licentiates were seventy-three in number. The college at 

 length began to relax a little. Three of the " rebels," now 

 advanced in years, were elected to the fellowship Huck 

 Saunders and the candid and learned Sir W. Watson in 1784, 

 and Fordyce was added to the list in 1787. With these 

 exceptions none of the twenty-nine ever became fellows of 

 the college. The question was again raised at law by Dr. 

 Stanger in 1796 and 1797, and was again decided in favour 

 of the college, Lord Kenyon even upholding its exclusive 

 bye-laws as just and reasonable. Many years had to pass 

 before a more liberal spirit entered into the college, when it 

 came to take a broader view of its trust on behalf of the 

 medical interests of London, and grew in strength and in 

 dignity by incorporating with itself as fellows all such physi- 

 cians as worthily upheld the standard of their profession, at 

 whatever university they were trained. 2 



To return to the licentiates in 1767. Having begun to 

 meet together to defend their rights, they continued to meet 

 once a fortnight at Old Slaughter's Coffee-house for medical 

 conference, and formed a small society which was often called 

 the Society of Physicians, and will here be described as the 

 " Society of (Licentiate) Physicians." Its members dined 

 together once a quarter at the Crown and Anchor in the 

 Strand. It was before this society that an essay on the 



1 Unsigned MS. Letter to Lettsom by one of the licentiates concerned in 

 the recent lawsuit, possibly Archer. Library of Roy. Soc. Med., Tracts 129 

 (not contained in Medical Communications). 



2 Dr. E. Hody, Attempt to reconcile Differences between the Fellows and 

 Licentiates, etc., 1752 ; [Anon.] Letter from a Physician . . . concerning the 

 Disputes . . . between the Fellows and Licentiates, 1753 ; Remarks on a 

 Pamphlet, intituled, Letter, etc., 1753 ; [Dr. S. Pye], Enquiry into the Legal 

 Constitution of the College of Physicians, 1753 ; The Law of Physicians, Surgeons, 

 etc. (Statutes), 1767 ; Foth. Works, ii. 355, 359, 377 ; Medical Register, London, 

 I 779. 1783 ! S. Ferris, M.D., General View of the Establishment of Physic, 1795 ; 

 C. Stanger, M.D., Justification of the Right of Physicians, etc., 1798 ; [Anon.] 

 Exposition of the State of the Medical Profession, 1826 ; J. W. Willcock, Laws 

 of the Medical Profession, 1830, pp. 31 ff., xxxix-lxxviii ; Mem. J. Aikin, M.D. 

 i. 174-178 ; Munk, Roll, ii. 95-105. The author has to acknowledge the 

 courtesy of Dr. J. A. Ormerod, Registrar of the Royal College of Physicians, 

 for supplying information as to the disorderly scenes at the comitia from the 

 Annals of the College. The original letter to Sir F. Norton is in the Corre- 

 spondence of the Hon. C. Yorke, Brit. Mus. MSS. Add. 35638, 91 ; it is in the 

 handwriting of Dr. T. Dickson, with autograph signatures. 



